Traveling over ground and imagination

Tag Archives: Workout

Wow…I have a ton of posts I need to do but just haven’t made the time to do them. I haven’t really talked about my weight loss efforts lately, except for this whiny post, and I think that is affecting my scale. When I was blogging about my workouts and food every day I was losing pretty consistently. I stop talking about them and I stop losing weight. Definitely a correlation! I need to keep my task at hand as close to the forefront as possible to keep myself focused.

So…where were we? How about doing a quick view of my workouts for October.

Yeah, that’s a bit pathetic looking compared to September. However, I had a valid excuse. I had my 4th dilation and the doc told me to sit out for 7-10 days. That being said, I was still slightly inconsistent with my workouts after that too though. I joined a challenge set up by Juliann on Daily Mile to run 10 more miles in November than I did in October. Given that I ran 51 miles in September and only 29 in October, I think I can hit that number!

I also started a competition with Amy where we get points for working out, eating under our calorie goal and hitting 1 macro goal (mine is keeping carbs at or under 150). We also get bonus points if we hit all three in a day to help make up for the times where we weren’t so good! Yep, we also get deducted points when we fail to eat under calories or hit our macro of choice. Seeing as how this started yesterday, November 1st, I’m already negative in points! I knew that going in though because I never eat well at the quilt fest! The competition ends on Jan. 31st and the winner will get to pick the reward, which we haven’t decided on just yet! In February, we’ll be running the Hot Chocolate 5K. Amy wanted to do the 15K, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold to the 15 minute pace minimum for that distance. So…I’m dragging her to the 5K!

Amy and Jeremy did the 5K Foam Fest with me in October. That was a blast. I still owe y’all a post about that one. They finally sent me the digital pictures (the company, not Amy and Jeremy!) so I’ll be writing that up pretty quick like. No…really…I will! 😀

Umm….what else….I’m sure I’m missing something but that’s ok. I’ll update this site as I go. You’ll be seeing a lot more posts about my weight loss efforts just because it’s something I need to do to keep myself accountable!

Since starting my marathon training, I’ve put in more miles than ever. Right now, I’m to the part of my training where my long runs are over 12 miles. Since I’ve only ever gone 13.1, today’s 14 miler was a little intimidating. However, I forced myself to get out of bed by 6:30 this morning to get my run in.

It was pretty, but I got it done. When I started I decided I was just going to walk the whole thing. Then I decided that I didn’t want to go 14 miles, so I’d only go 6 and call it good. Finally, I compromised with myself and did the entire 14 miles but switched my intervals so I was walking 3 minutes and running 2. I’m glad I did too. The very last mile was a tough one to push through. But, I did it….I made it 14 miles! Only 1 problem…I was still about 2.5 miles away from where I parked my car when I hit my 14 miles…yep…way to plan Tammy!

Since my feet were hurting and my knee was acting up, I decided to walk a slow/casual pace. Yep…it was slow alright! I finally got back to my car and laid in the backseat so I could prop my feet up for a bit to get the swelling to go down. That felt great! I ended up getting blisters between my big toe and the next one over. I don’t know….I don’t know how I got it either! I stopped by HEB for my chocolate milk (my Saturday treat) and picked up some double stuff Oreos. Just a word of advice, don’t do 16.75 miles on an empty stomach. I’m sure I don’t need to tell y’all that…but thought I’d pass it on anyway. Thankfully, I was able to eat only a few and close the bag back up. I could have easily scarfed down the entire package!

Once I got home, I took my ice bath, doctored my blisters, and put my feet up on the coach. It feels good to be back home.

I started with Push Press. This was an experience! I tried to do my max with 105# but I couldn’t get my arms all the way straight. In fact, I was losing control of the weight and since it was going backward, I just plopped it down on my shoulders. Stupid? yes…Painful? A little bit….Everything was ok? yep. So, I dropped back down to 95# and maxed there. This was up 10# from last time, but not as much as I wanted. I wanted the 105#. My partner, Sunny, kicked ass! She is such an inspiration.

Next was the Back Squat. We don’t do back squats very often. In fact, the last time I did them that I can remember was when we maxed out the last time. I went up 20#, which was a 10% increase. I would have liked to have done at least 200#. Again, not what I wanted, but still happy with the increase.

Last we did the Power Clean. My max with the clean was 105# and that’s what I got again this time. I was pulling the bar high enough, I just couldn’t get myself to squat under it. It’s definitely a mental thing. My other issue is that I’m not very flexible in my arms so I have a difficult time getting my elbows up. If you can’t get your elbows up you won’t be able to support the higher weights!

All in all, I’m pleased with the increases but still a little let down. Tomorrow is the final day of benchmarking. I’m not sure what we’re doing but Shane said we were doing some other “moves” (I assume deadlift) and some body weight work (how many push ups in a minute type thing). I’m sore tonight and I imagine will be sore tomorrow. We’ll see!

Our warm up started with a 400 meter run followed by 2 rounds of sit ups, push ups and squats. I was the last one coming in and was having a really tough time breathing. We had rain most of the day but the sun had come out about an hour before time for our workout, which created a very muggy atmosphere. There was an older gentleman who came back out and finished the run with me. Which was very kind. When we got inside everyone else was pretty much done with their warm ups while I was just starting sit ups. However, my emotions started running high and I was on the verge of crying. I was able to suck it up and hold it together, but I didn’t get the rest of the warm up in. I am so frustrated with not being able to breathe. My workouts suffer, I get highly anxious about what we’re going to do, I no longer look forward to the WODs because I know I won’t be able to compete with my previous times and…quite frankly, it’s embarrassing and humiliating. There were a lot of people there I hadn’t worked out with before who kept trying to cheer me on during the WOD (which I appreciated) but I know they have no idea what the hell’s wrong with me. Ok, enough of that…I go back to the doctor on August 23rd and will more than likely have my dilation a month from then, so I only have to deal with this for a couple more months. Once my throat gets stretched back out, I’ll be back in the game baby!

My shirt kept coming up during the mountain climbers, so I’d like to apologize now for any unnecessary flashing the others may have experienced! The kettlebell swings were easy. I should have used 25, but Shane told the girls to use 15 so I thought it may be harder than it was. Live and learn!

You know…the hardest thing about blogging is coming up with the damn titles! Sometimes I just choose random titles but usually I try to make it relevant to the post itself. Take this one for instance…WOD…Workout of the Day. Since it was a CrossFit day, it fits. Clever huh? huh? yeah, ok, so it was a bad play on words. Anyway….moving on!

We started today’s CrossFit a tabata round of weighted sit-ups. Toward the end I was only able to go 1/2 way up. Shane asked us if we wanted to do abs before or after the WOD. He didn’t care, we were going to do them either way! Michelle and I both agreed it would be best to do them first because afterward we’d be too gassed to do them properly. Have I mentioned how much I don’t like sit-ups? Well…I don’t but they do work your core.

The WOD was 3 rounds of running 400 meters, 30 OH squats (I used the 35# bar), and 21 pull ups. Since I can’t do a pull up yet I just do jumping pull ups, which is still work. I’m a very slow runner. In fact, I’m more of a walker than a runner. Shane felt we should be able to finish in 15-16 minutes. Pppffftttt…right! The first run wasn’t too bad. The OH squats right after the run was a little tough because I was breathing so hard, which affected my hold on the bar overhead. The second run was quite a bit slower. It was a bit drizzly but felt pretty good because it was cool. When I was coming in from my second run Shane told me that I could modify the run if I needed to because he just wanted me to be able to finish the entire WOD. I just nodded my ok while thinking “Like hell I’m going to modify the run. I will finish the WOD. I will finish the WOD.” That became my mantra for the last round. I think I was more waddling than running that last round, but I finished the run and the entire WOD in 21:53. Needless to say I wasn’t close to his 15-16 minute estimate! None of us finished in less than 19 minutes. However, I’m proud of all of us. I think we have all improved. I know my first workout put me out of commission for a week. I was so tired afterward that I would have been happy for someone to carry me to my car and was sore for days! AND….that was only 5 rounds of 15 OH squats (I used a dow…so no weight) and a 100 meter run. It’s amazing what a different a month can make.

On the de-cluttering front, I am getting rid of an address book my old boss brought me back from her trip to Paris. I have all my contacts on my phone, which is backed up to my computer, so I don’t think I need it anymore. In the trash it went!

Update on my Grandfather: They moved him to an acute longterm hospital tonight. The nurse attached an EKG machine to him, then proceeded to push the cart away while he was still hooked up to it. I’m hoping that was just a mistake and not a sign of the care he’ll be getting. They are keeping him sedated because he isn’t “doing well” when he’s off sedation. Whatever that means. They told my Dad and Grandma that they will be trying to get him off the respirator over the next 5 days; However if they are not able to get him off the respirator then the family will need to make a decision on what to do. His kidneys are still only functioning at 40% as well. It has been such a roller coaster. I thought he might actually pull through this, being the stubborn old goat he is, but now I’m not sure. So, we play the waiting game again.